"The Mystifying Rise of Child Suicide" was an incredibly emotional read. We often discuss how some tragedy occurs in children and youth through inaccessibility to mental health services and care, but in Trevor’s case, he had access and was failed by the system. A quote that really stood out to me was, “Parents can’t fathom and don’t want to fathom their kids doing it, so they underinvest in making sure it doesn’t happen,”. Parents and society alike ultimately fear a child completing suicide yet this fear doesn’t drive the implementation of preventative education and actions as you would hope. Instead, the topic of child suicide is met with denial and indifference.
We often discuss how children struggle with conceptualizing varying perspective and from the article we see how quick lived and immediate the suicidal urge in children is. It makes me think of the importance of honest conversations regarding mental health, and suicidal ideation. If parents, providers, educators and society at large, held more capacity and intentionality to openly discuss mental health struggles and suicide ideation, I think it could safe lives. These topics are especially pertinent considering the rise of social media and its detrimental impact on child suicide rates.